Opinion: Kari Lake loses – again. Even Trump voters chose Gallego.

The state of Arizona just proved once and for all that there is only one Donald Trump.
And his name isn’t Kari Lake.
After nearly four years of campaigning for two different jobs, Arizona’s self-proclaimed “Trump in a dress” has been sent packing by Arizona voters.
Again, that is.
Lake lost the 2022 governor’s race by 17,116 votes.
With the final votes still being counted in last week’s Senate election, she was trailing Democrat Ruben Gallego late Monday by 72,626 votes, prompting The Associated Press to call the race.
In fact, Kari Lake may be the only bright spot in this election for the Arizona Democratic Party, which had hoped to seize control of the legislature and a pair of congressional seats and now is just hoping to remain relevant.
No doubt, Democrats are grateful to those Republican primary voters who snubbed Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, a guy who likely would be Sen.-elect Lamb today had he won the primary.
Instead, there is Sen.-elect Gallego, the third Democrat sent to the U.S. Senate from Arizona after nearly three decades of Republicans owning both seats.
Once upon a time, conventional wisdom would have given Gallego no chance to win a statewide race in Arizona. He’s a leftie in what is still a center-right state.
But conventional wisdom never took into account a Republican Party that has no interest in nominating a Republican who can actually win over the broader electorate.
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While Gallego wisely moved to the center during his campaign – now, we’ll see if he remains there – Lake never could quite yank her celebrated stake out of the backs of McCain Republicans and independents.
Former state GOP Chairman Jeff DeWit saw this coming.
That’s why he showed up on her doorstep in March 2023, urging her to take a break from politics after a bruising 2022 campaign for governor left her wholly unlikable with a broad swath of moderate Republican and independent voters.
Lake declined DeWit’s suggestion to take a breather, secretly recording their conversation and later, after that recording was conveniently leaked to the public, announced that she couldn’t be bribed.
Then she proceeded to drum him out as state party chairman.
And her likability numbers? They kept dropping, with more than half of Arizona voters telling pollsters they had an unfavorable view of Lake.
There’s no coming back from that.
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Lake declined to listen to seasoned campaign pros in Arizona and in Washington, D.C. – the ones who urged her to stop talking about imagined stolen elections and to ease up on the scorched-earth tactics.
Instead, she continued to appeal her 2022 loss in the courts, asking for a new election up to and even after the 2024 election.
She also continued to play to her MAGA base, tossing her signature fireballs here, there and everywhere. But the only thing burned in the end was any bridge to the more centrist voters she needed to win.
There’s a reason why “Trump in a dress” has thus far racked up more than 165,000 fewer votes than the original article.
“She’s more divisive than Trump,” Republican strategist Chuck Coughlin told me. “She’s Trump without his celebrity or even his dubious business credentials. … She simply cannot appeal to a broad enough cross section of the electorate.”
An October HighGround poll showed Gallego drawing double the support of Lake among independents, and nearly 10% of likely Republican voters polled said they planned to cross party lines to vote for him.
People like Bart, a Phoenix-area businessman who sees Lake as “truly a nutjob.”
“I am a Trump voter who could not bring myself to vote for Kari Lake,” he told me on Thursday. “There is no conspiracy. She is just bad news, and anyone running against her would be the better choice, no matter what party they represent.”
People like Dave.
“I am one of those who left the race blank. I dislike both candidates and refused to vote for her just because she is Republican,” he said. “I’m turned off by her incessant whining and fraud claims for four years now. She needs to just go away.”
In the end, not even being a Trump mini-me could save Lake, even as a red wave crashed over Arizona and America.
As HighGround pollster Paul Bentz told me a few weeks ago, “Trump is a unicorn. Everyone else is just a horse wearing a hat.”
A horse that’s now been beaten yet again.
It’ll be interesting to see if Republicans in Arizona, having lost yet another important statewide race, wake up, slap their foreheads and ask the question the rest of us have been wondering for a while now:
What were they thinking?
Laurie Roberts is a columnist at the Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. Reach Roberts at [email protected] or follow her on X (formerly Twitter) @LaurieRobertsaz and on Threads @LaurieRobertsaz